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Copyright

Whether you’re a v/b-logger, game creator, or singer you know the importance of protection of your IP or Intellectual Property. You IP is your baby no matter what form it came in, you spent the time and effort creating this thing that you want to share with the world, so why wouldn’t you protect it?

Your IP is Your Legacy

I dunno about you, but growing up in school I was asked what was the effect I wanted to have on the world, what did I want to leave behind when I was gone and buried but the world kept spinning? Harsh question to ask a 6 year old, but the answer was usually children.

‘I want to have children that can have their own children’ – but what if you don’t want kids? What if you’re in love with music and pour your heart and soul into a piece, only to have it taken and used by someone who goes against everything the piece is about? Similarly, those with kids, what if the faceless slimy conman twists your child to their own means – it’s devastating.

A parent will worry about their baby no matter the age, why should you leave the content you built from a love of the craft to the wolves?

Rolling Stones v.s. Donald Trump

Now, being from/living in Ireland, American politics have no real effect on me day to day so I don’t give them much thought; but a recent famous case of IP protection was the Rolling Stones telling Donald Trump to stop using their music at his rallies.

YouTube Copyright Strikes or: How Not To Protect IPs

The YouTube copyright system is an absolute disaster. It’s the perfect example of why an automated police force like Robocop wouldn’t work – everything is black and white, right or wrong. Remember back in the day when you could find trash trance songs with lyrics on some random channel? Well under YouTube’s Copyright policy they are toootally fine, but parodies are not.

Yeno, the things protected by the US fair use law (example from Stanford University Libraries quoting Richard Stim’s Getting Permission)? The same law system that YouTube’s parent company Google falls under, YouTube itself totally ignores and bans any use of any similar sound to a song for example. Unless of course it’s the whole thing unmonitised, or, the ‘owners’ like it (Examples 1, 2, 3).

Listen, IP protection is important. But if you’re like a Sony claiming a Taylor Swift song or a Blizzard killing vanilla servers, protect your baby. DON’T. KILL. CREATIVITY. It’ll hurt you as much as us.